Newcastle United boss Alan Pardew knows he faces a managerial test after defeat to Swansea City.

Six days after succumbing tamely to West Ham, the Magpies were largely outplayed by Swansea before slipping to a 2-1 defeat which left them in the bottom half of the table, a far cry from last season's high-flying heroics.

Pardew said: "You have to understand that in a managerial career at any football club, you are going to have some times when things don't go for you. Now we have had a week where it really has conspired against us in a lot of ways.

"Jonas was so close. We were deciding on whether to play him (on Friday) and we felt with the injury he had, it was too risky, so he was very, very close.

"Then we had Papiss taken away from us, we had Shola [Ameobi] only arriving on Friday afternoon [from international duty with Nigeria], so we had a lot of things that didn't work for us this week."